Championship Week!!!

Well it's been 51 weeks since I was able to say this...Happy Championship Week everybody!!!

So, why is Championship Week so special, you ask? It's Libscomb versus Belmont, two Nashville schools separated by less than two miles, playing an overtime battle for the Atlantic Sun title and automatic bid. It's six-seeded Vermont trying to recapture last year's magic and pull off a series of huge upsets in the America East Conference. It's the infectious joy of Western Kentucky's Grimace as the Hilltoppers march through the Sun Belt.

To sum it up, it's the indominatable spirit of not only the players, but the coaches, fans, mascots and cheerleaders as well. How could anyone not have their insides torn out when seeing a Southern Illinois cheerleader fall twelve feet from the top of the human pyramid and how can anyone not smile the grandest of smiles upon seeing the young woman not only move her arms and legs while being carried off on the stretcher, but actually performing the proper movements of the SIU cheer, while the Saluki band played the fight song as she was wheeled past. My guess is that Indiana could win the Big Ten tournament championship, Notre Dame could make up for a season of unbelievably heartbreaking losses with four straight buzzer-beating wins to win the Big East auto bid, and Arizona's Lute Olsen could actually find his missing conscience, kick "cancer" Chris Rogers off the team and suspend Hassan Adams (who was arrested over the weekend and charged with DUI) for the remainder of the season, and the memory of the SIU cheerleader will remain the #1 image of the week in my mind. MADNESS!!!

So, with less than one week until Selection Sunday, where do we stand? Well, given the continued craziness, we are really no closer to getting a clear picture of the field of 65 than we were last Friday. In all the years that I have been an NCAA Tournament nut, I can never remember a year where almost every bubble team that had to win a game, followed through. Sure, you've got Syracuse's collapse and Vanderbilt's loss to Tennessee as the exceptions, but generally, a mediocre cache of bubble teams is picking up their games at precisely the right time. Seton Hall wins at Pitt, Cincinnati knocks off cursed West Virginia, Florida State and Texas A (screw the ampersand) M follow up their big wins with necessary road victories, and the Missouri Valley conference tournament plays out exactly how it had to for the Valley to maximize its tournament participation.

Before we jump into the Valley, one quick question... Is there any scientific data to suggest that college basketball teams play better when their fans are jumping up and down, yelling "ooooooohhhhh?" Is the effect intensified if the fans are wearing really stupid outfits? When (and where) did that ridiculous trend start? When I was at IU, we saw basketball games as an opportunity to meet girls, not as a good chance to wear our dormant Superman underoos or the plaid tuxedo that we wore during our high school drama class. (Okay, so that was actually three not-so-quick questions).

Let's talk about the Valley for a second. First, what do we know? Well, Southern Illinois is in and I believe that we can also conclusively say that regular season champ Wichita State will get a bid. Anything else? Let's see. It's against the Valley rules to score more that 58 points? Nah...(although that may be an "unwritten" rule that is every-so-often ignored like bunting for a hit to break up a no-hitter or not being able to touch a Gonzaga player at all or risk getting an immediate foul called) The Valley was severly exposed on Bracket Buster Saturday and is incredibly overrated? Now, I'm on to something.

The truth is we don't know anything else about the Valley and how many teams are going to crawl into the tournament. Northern Iowa has far-and-away the best non-conference resume, Missouri State has an RPI in the low 20's (no team with an RPI lower than #33 has ever been left home), prior to the second half of the championship game Bradley was red hot, and Creighton has a decent overall profile. My guess (as of today) is that 5 teams get in with Creighton hosting a first-round NIT game.

The Colonial Athletic Association also has done everything to maximize the number of bids that it will receive. Before the conference tournament, most viewed George Mason as a good bet, UNC Wilmington as a fairly good bet, and Hofstra (that's right, I said Hofstra) as a mediocre bet. Well, Hofstra knocked off Mason in the semifinals, setting up a championship meeting with Wilmington tonight. Can the CAA, which has not sent more than one team to the dance in over 20 years, actually get two bids? Three? In my mind, not a chance.

No matter what transpires, the Valley and the CAA are sure to get less teams than the Big Ten. With Indiana's victory at Michigan on Saturday, the Hoosiers are an absolute lock. In fact, it would not suprise me if Friday's Big Ten quarterfinal game against Badgers was for a potential 6 or 7 seed. When the Hoosiers were losing five straight, the wolves were at Mike Davis' door and Marco Killingsworth forgot how to make layups, Indiana was constantly mentioned by the media as a bubble team. I can buy this. But after winning home games against lowly (want as random of a reference as is humanly possible? Lowly was the name of the worm in the Richard Scarry children's books) Penn State and Michigan State and a road game against Purdue, the media maintained their "IU is a bubble team" position. Well, you know what? The media was wrong. Even with a 16-10 record, Indiana was comfortably "in" the tournament at that point. One only needs look at their overall resume to understand why. Quality wins? Check. Performance in the #1 RPI conference? Check. Non-conference performance? Check. Stength of schedule? Check. The only factors that could have possibly kept them out were: recent record and road record. With the three game winning streak and the road win against Purdue, those factors were eliminated and IU was in the field.

(I know that I promised you a full discussion of the idiocy of the factors that the committee uses in picking the 34 at large teams and I pledge that it is forthcoming this week).

Now we all know that during IU's collapse Mike Davis blamed the team's struggles on the constant questions about his job and the negative "buzz" around the team (as created by the media and Hoosier Nation). The general reaction to Davis' claims was outrage as people screamed that Davis was once again making an excuse for his poor coaching. Well, now that we have seen this team play extremely well at the beginning of the season (when the media and fans had a "wait and see" attitude), poor as the negative fervor built in intensity, and pretty darn good since Davis announced his resignation, one must ask, is it really that hard to believe that the negativity did have an effect on the Hoosier players?

Anyway, as an Indiana fan, I am very happy that the Hoosiers will definitively hear their name announced on Selection Sunday. Who will they play? How in the heck should I know? That said, you know how fans always hold up signs that say "We Want Duke" or "We Want UConn?" Screw that, I'm holding up a sign that says "We Want Delaware State." Okay, "We Want Southern Illinois" (or any overrated team from the Valley) will have to do.

Speaking of Dick Vitale University...yes, I did watch their game with Michael Jordan University on Saturday night. I actually thought the "Above the Rim" cam was pretty cool (the Cameron Crazy broadcast, however, bordered on asinine). Cheering for the Blue Devils (hey, a Duke win helps IU's strength of schedule), I found myself awfully distraught with the score in the second half. In fact, I found myself flipping channels to see if I could find one where Duke was winning. Alas, the score was the same on all channels, although my channel surfing did afford me the opportunity to see a lot of great split-screen programming. The actual game of course was on every channel, but I also enjoyed former Tar Heel Dante Calabria walking the catwalk on Women's Entertainment (WE), a camera focused exclusively on Tyler Hansbrough's MILF mother on the Maxim Magazine wanna-be station Spike (hey, you didn't really think they were going to find a Duke student worthy of focusing on, did you?), and a reality show featuring J.J. Redick living on a deserted island with UNC's David Noel, Wake Forest's Justin Gray, and Maryland's Nick Caner-Medley on VH1's Celeb-reality.

Finally, tonight, we have the CAA final, where either Wilmington or Hofstra (no, I wasn't kidding the first time I wrote that) will get their ticket punched, the MAAAAAAAC final with I-O-N-A taking on St. Peter's, and a bunch of tournament games in the MAC, Sun Belt and Mid-Con. Oh yeah, there is also Loyola Marymount trying and do the impossible in the West Coast Conference championship (incidentially, the WCC has one of the coolest conference logos I have seen) and beat the overrated little school from the Northwest despite wild, unrestrained elbows from the "extra" from Dazed and Confused mentioned last week (also I believed compared to Phil Packer from the Brady Bunch in the past), the play of four other players from Gonzaga, the prayers of scores of bubble teams, the rabid behaviorof the fans, and, yes, (I will stick up for the poor ol' San Diego Head Coach), three men in black and white vertical striped shirts. Good luck with that Lions...